Art of the Book Exhibition

I'm proud to have co-curated the Art of the Book Exhibition, that will open on October 30 at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington. From Pyramid Atlantic's archive, Anna Spelman and I chose 40 works of art that include books, prints, and portfolios-that we felt exemplified a strong sense of concept, was visually engaging, and related to the book as an art form.
Please come to the reception: October 30, 2-4pm
Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington DC, Goldman Art Gallery
6125 Montrose Road, Rockville MD 20852

Fast Forward-Stop-Rewind

Two of my girls, Kieu Lam and Kelly O'Brien, will be leaving to live abroad soon. Kieu will be heading up a very cool book art program called Bound in Japan, and Kelly will be moving to Germany to continue working on books and prints, and soak up the amazing art community that Heidelberg offers.
As two of the dearest friends I've made during my time out here on the east coast, I'm sad to see them go, but I'm so excited to know that they are continuing their creative endeavors-growing as artists & inspiring others.

Catching up on what I've been up to...
Last month I was in Lumina Studio Theatre's production of Canterbury Tales.



What creatives can do on a tiny budget never ceases to amaze me.
Photographs by Linda Parker





And finished my book for The Love Library project. It will be on display during the Southern Graphics Council Conference at the Craft Alliance Gallery in St. Louis.

Book (R)evolution

I feel like I'm still reeling from the Pyramid Atlantic Book Arts Fair last weekend. It's hard to believe that it's over, after spending the last 9 months working on it. I'm very lucky to have had the opportunity to work with such a creative and organized committee.
Highlights:

Beth Schaible, our former Letterpress Associate, joined us as an exhibitor.
Tate Foley put together a site-specific interactive installation in the Pyramid Vault, and Annie Albagli and Joshua Goode's Paradise Lost was an impressive installation in the Atrium of the Civic Building.

Out in front of the fair, Drive-By-Press was doing their thing. And at Pyramid, we held demonstrations including flip book making with Carla Nicolas.
We also showed some great films including Typeface, Proceed and Be Bold, and Who Does She think She is?
Here are more images of the event. Stay tuned for more information on the next Pyramid Book Arts Fair, scheduled for the fall of 2012.

Artist of the week

Due to working at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, I'm lucky to have gotten to know and forged friendships with some amazing artists over the past four years.
Irene Chan is one of these people. We actually met for the first time over two years ago when we were both in an exhibition at Montpelier Art Center, and we carpooled to the opening. Time past, and we lost touch, but have recently reconnected. We try to meet up once a month and talk about art, go see plays, or just hang out and drink tea. Irene's pieces are smart, sometimes humorous, well crafted, and very provocative.
One of her particularly powerful pieces to me is a piece called YELLOWSKIN BRACELET.

It is a sculptural artist book to be worn on arm, and it tells the story of someone seeing a bright yellow bracelet and thinking it was the exact same color as her skin. Check out the video

Here is another in-progress piece that I'm particularly fond of:

LOOKJUSTLIKE BOOK
she will flip a flexagon book of Asian portraits that people say she “looks just like …”

To see more of Irene's work, go here

Labano-what?

Inside Look: Folksay/Episode Three: Labanotation from CityDance Ensemble on Vimeo.

Citydance is Washington's preeminent modern dance company. Preeminent is a fancy word for bad-ass. I love them, I really do.
So, a bunch of artists (including yours truly)were invited to create an editioned artist book based on Citydance's 08-09 dance season. I've been thinking a lot about how we can map, chart and document our day to day movements. This labanotation thing just may be the ticket for the guts of my book. Stay tuned.
Oh, you can also read more about the project on Kelly's blog. Kelly O'brien, who is book artist, dancer, marketing goddess (don't all artists need such a godess?) and is the mastermind behind this book arts collaboration/edition. TurningPointe Press